I LIBRARY (• CONGRE SS. 3 

* A 

♦UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.! 




ELLEN. 




*w 



ELLEN 



A POEM. 



BY 

GEORGE H. CALVERT. 

It 




NEW YORK: 
SHELDON AND COMPANY, 

498 & 500 Broadway. 
1869. 



|H1 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

George H. Calvert, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Rhode Island 



riverside, Cambridge: 

stereotyped and printed by 

h. o. houghton and company. 



To 
JOHN SWINTON. 

My dear Mr. Swinton: 

I cannot put my name to " Ellen " unaccompanied by 
that of the friend from whom I received — while yet his 
bodily features were unknown to me — a most welcome 
sympathy and the kindest offices. In dedicating these 
pages to you I give myself a rare gratification, height- 
ened by the peculiar enjoyment one has in making, with 
entire propriety, a public avowal of personal feelings. 
Sincerely and gratefully yours, 

G. H. CALVERT. 

Newport, R. L, May, 1869. 



*x* A small edition of this Poem was published anony- 
mously in 1867. In that were omitted eleven introduc- 
tory stanzas, which are here restored, and which are 
needed to give completeness to the design. Nor was 
the whole divided into parts, — a division that marks 
the growth and purport of the Poem, and giving it a 
natural relief, assists the reader. Moreover, that edition 
was marred by misprints, whereby in several stanzas the 
meaning was obscured. 

1869. 



CONTENTS. 



I. A Surprise 9 

II. O Woman ! . 21 

III. The Rescue . . 37 

IV. A Country Home 50 



ELLEN. 



A SURPRISE. 



The world is full of fire. Stars, aye ablaze, 
Band the Infinitudes with burning links: 

Wild comets flare on the tame earth amaze, 

Hanging men's startled thought on being's brinks: 

Fervent sun-scented gifts are all our days, 
And of the solar surge each creature drinks ; 

While under Earth's cool grassy crust glows heat 

That floods with soaring sap pine, rose, and wheat. 



IO ELLEN. 

II. 
Broad Nature feeds on warmth, whose overflow 

Is but the momentary froth of waves ; 
As when Night reels with Lightning's sudden blow, 

Or Lava's torrid tide turns towns to graves, 
Or Conflagration, wrapt in ghastly glow, 

Leaping from roof to roof, wind-maddened raves. 
'Tis Nature's joy and life, this blessed fire, 
In all things hid, as music in the lyre. 



in. 
Earth's paragon, Nature's dear masterpiece, — 

In whom has been, to hundredth proof, distilled 
Her liveliest currents, whose unending lease 

Of life (contracted here) is so o'erfilled 
With great conditions, earth's select increase 

Breeds but a fraction's mite of what was willed 
When God made man, steeping a dormant clay 
In the chaste baptism of immortal ray, — 



ELLEN. I I 

IV. 
He in the unmeasured circuits of his soul 

Coils flame, whereto lava and thunder-burst 
Are shafts short-aimed at evanescent goal, 

Hot agencies that fiercely slake their thirst 
On things terrene. Darting from pole to pole 

Of being's sphere, man now is self-immersed 
In seething sense, now flashing to the heights 
Where he can track free angels in their flights : 



v. 

Himself a budded angel graft on clay; 

Fresh Mercury a-tiptoe on the earth, 
His wings invisible by solar day ; 

A new-born life, awaiting higher birth 
With upward eyes, whose supersensuous play, 

Seizing the farthest suns, draws in the worth 
Beyond them swaying, inward to the nest 
Where awe hatches great thoughts of God \ and, blest 



1 2 ELLEN, 

VI. 
With glance supreme of intuition, man 

Uplifts him o'er himself, to where pure mind 
Rules in such ever-glowing light there can 

No shadow come, and whither, unconfined 
By doubt, unbalked by angered passion's ban, 

He hies, his tangled counsels to unbind, 
Free balanced clear of sense-cajoling clod, 
Hearing with inward ear the voice of God. 



VII. 

What myriad worlds circle in the small round 
Whence glow eyes bold to read the firmament; 

Eyes lit with messages from realms whose bound 
Is th' Infinite, thought's glittering legions pent 

Within that petty spirit-swarming mound, 
Aye luminous with orders heard or sent, 

And lurid with a trembling glare at times, 

When loves perverted boil to hates and crimes. 



ELLEN. 1 3 

VIII. 
Man is compact of loves \ and when they turn 

Inward upon himself, or outward spend 
Unwarily their essences, they burn 

Into the very frame of being, and rend 
The impassioned pulses fine wherewith men earn 

The all of joys that with life's labors blend. 
The child of love, man is ensteeped in loves: 
Promotion to their deepest music moves. 



IX. 

A stable hierarchy, a choral whole, 

The multitudinous mind of man is strung 

To chords vibrating harmonies that roll 

Through fineless space ; and 'tis because are rung 

Through the Infinite the discords of his soul 

That thence such deepening agonies are wrung, — 

Unwitnessed agonies, whose inward pain 

Beyond the sun throws shadows of their stain. 



14 ELLEN. 

X. 

For thence we come; and thither we return, 

When the strong soul hath rent its clasping crust; 

But if our restless fervors downward burn, — 
We mixing us too freely with our dust, — 

The ray divine, like lamp through earthen urn, 
Irradiates not, or dimly, lightless lust, 

With blight fraught single, — not from animalism, 

But that, unchastened, lust works aye a schism ; 



XL 

Man's complex spheric being, for its weal 

Needing co-active unity in all 
His diverse powers, then only the white seal 

Of good being set when act is not a thrall 
Of passion, but the generous pulses feel 

Their throb within its life. The ceaseless call 
Of men to man were mocked by answers dark 
With the close breathing of a bestial bark. — 



ELLEN. 1 5 



XII. 



A sunny brook, on whose clean floor the stones 
Sparkle unstained, that suddenly befoul, 

Deep at its forest-head, putrescent bones 

Thrust there by murder done beneath night's cowl 

On trustful travellers, whose unpitied moans, 

Heard but in Heaven, were married to the howl 

Of wolves, — the brooklet's laughing life bedimmed, 

Its glad pellucid pools with poison brimmed: 



XIII. 

A sward-bound bed the sun and earth and air 
(Wedding their blissful craft at beauty's hest) 

Have hid with flowers, so fresh, so flashing fair, 
With tender-tinted flames they seem possest, 

When swiftly, — as if Hell's subjacent lair 
Into their veins had shot a biting pest, — 

They fall disbloomed, their sweetened delicate breath 

Quenched in the blackness of unsavory death : 



1 6 ELLEN. 

XIV. 
What image else can hang within your eyes 

Nature disrupted, thwarted, maimed, and bleak, — 
Ocean senseless to wind, a Paradise 

Ravished of blossoms, — such will faintly speak 
What were those youthful women who in guise 

Of modest maidenhood, so flattering meek, 
Welcomed Horatio, whose unhardened skin 
Flushed ruby at the sudden thought within; — 



xv. 
Then swift the bashful blood rewarmed his heart, 

And pale, an anger'd eye he cast around 
For the false comrade who had played the part 

Of trifler with him ; but as swift the wound 
Healed of itself. An impulse then to dart 

Forth from the gairish room, and at a bound 
Heaven's air rebreathe, shot through him. That, too, 

died; 
And almost ere it parted, at his side 



ELLEN. 1 7 

XVI. 

Spake one whose sleepy yearning tones were links 
Of chain, whose other end a lisping child 

Bound to her mother's lap, a dimpled minx, 
Who in the mother's plundered bosom piled 

Such heaps of love, they brimmed the very brinks 
Of joy at times, and overflowed in mild 

Unwitnessed tears, which quick were sunned away 

By arch look of the little girl at play. 



XVII. 

Where two small velvet valleys greenly met, 

To slope as one towards hearkened Hudson's shore, 

Their cottage nestled by a rivulet 

That ran outleaping from the shadows hoar 

Of stormy oaks, and prattling with her, wet 
The fondling's feet, and made her ringers more 

Like bursting rose-buds, as in sultry heat 

She dabbled in it with her hands and feet. 



1 8 ELLEN. 

XVIII. 

A playmate was she of the blossomed trees, 

The first to spy the unlooked-for gleaming rings 

Of wild flowers in the grass, as at her knees 
New violets peeped from their cold coverings 

To watch her joy. The summer-heated bees 
Sang round her, as she were of honeyed things, 

And birds near her in Eden were, and lighted 

Upon her shining shoulder unaffrighted. 



XIX. 

When the fleet years had poured into her veins 
The rapid juice of more ambitious blood, 

Her little longings leaped to loftier gains, 

And taught the senses wider walks. The flood 

Of the quick rivulet, — more quick with rains, — 
She mounted gleesome to its lowering wood. 

There mystery answered mystery, and the deep 

Dim silence, like to sense-upfolding sleep, 



ELLEN. ig 

XX. 

Unlocked her soul and loosed a brood of thought 
That ranged for food within the obscurer caves 

Of umbrage, where in rock-strewn dusk were taught 
The hushed delight of awe that, like the waves 

Of untrod ocean, is with tidings fraught 
From worlds which vast imagination laves. 

Thence with the mimic cataracts she bounded 

Back to her home with naked feet unwounded. 



XXI. 

The mould-exhaled balms of many springs 
So fed the fragrance of her breathful day, 

That she was like the perfumed offerings 
Of a wild wilderness of buds to May. 

So dashed were eye and cheek by tints from wings 
Of mounting morns, dyed was the mortal clay 

In light as from a heaven-expired air; 

And sunbeams hid them in her golden hair. 



20 ELLEN. 

XXII. 
Not closer did the summer-shrunken brook 

Cling to its pebbly bed, than the bereft 
Deserted mother worn, with heart and look 

To the one single .child, all that was left 
To love of her own blood. Her eyelids shook 

Heart-moisture on the sleeping girl, a theft 
Of covert sorrow from the darkness, — tears 
Folded by day within blind bodeful fears. 



XXIII. 

Death grasping her pale child — this was the view 
Old dolors graved upon a bruised brain. 

x\nd they were kind; for had they limned the new 
Unheralded rank truth, so near, the pain 

Had rift her clay; for when it fell it slew 
Her earth-life at a stroke; and now the rain, 

That made the brook laugh with her laughing child, 

Wets sod above her lonely body piled. 



II. 

O WOMAN ! 

i. 
Fair Death! who look'st so dark, because our sight 

Is dim with reek from godless fears; so dread, 
Because our loves are lawless ; whose deep night 

Is but a drooping cloud, disgorged and fed 
And nursed by howling fantasies that blight 

The fresh heart's sunshine, so thy name is wed 
To hideous thoughts men call thee Terrors' King, 
In joy forefeeling cold thy fated sting, 



22 ELLEN. 

II. 
And at thy coming crouch, like a new guilt 

Before old conscience' doomful eye awaked. 
Dear Death ! grimed earthlings are we, and have built 

Our life with faithless mortar, whence is shaked 
So sharp a dust about our heads thou wilt 

Forgive our blindness, that we still have quaked 
Tore brain-coined demon at the name of thee, 
High handmaid of our immortality ! 

in. 
Eternal beckoner to upper seats! 

'Twixt earth and Heaven winged carrier sure and 
swift ! 
Life-quickening Death ! who seem'st to quench the 
heats 
Thou dost redress with finer life and gift. 
Haunted by glib imagination's cheats, 

This fear-filled mother watched for thee to lift 
Thy scythe and make her hearth a wilderness, 
And choke her veins with grief and loneliness. 



ELLEN. 23 

IV. 
But when dishonor's loathly blastment crept 

Upon her child's warm breathing pure, — smooth 
blown 
From the hell of a cold lustful heart, while slept 

A dream-disturbed innocence, — a moan 
Rent her twin being, and the spirit leapt 

Up towards its home, where Death the demon 
shone 
A God, relinking her to the lorn child, 
Her beautiful, soft, loving girl denied. 

v. 

So by redeeming Death are sped the senses, 
A deepening freshening insight she did gain 

Through earth's fierce fumes and vacant violences 
And all the fevered joys that nourish pain, 

Such insight far, distracted innocences 

Now almost seemed what had been sinful stain : 

Through sifted disencumbered thought she smiled 

Upon her anguished flesh-imprisoned child. 



24 ELLEN. 

VI. 

Was due this heaven-lit smile to the new friend, 
God's holy harvester, the Archangel Death; 

For with the lights that calm around her blend, 
And privileges goodness doth bequeath, 

Content can see that toward the loved one tend 
So fast Death's muffled fee't, her sighful breath 

Grows less and less; wherein the mother joyed, 

Even as when the blue-eyed babe she toyed. 



VII. 

And the lone, watched one, she at times would turn. 

As though she felt her mother's voice; and then 
The cottage by the brook itself would burn 

Into her eyes, they staring strange, of ken 
All vacant, till, — short respite given, — the stern 

Loathed present seized and crushed her in a den 
Of reptiles cold, created of her wings, — 
A cherub's plumes self-changed to scalding stings. 



ELLEN, 25 

VIII. 

Horatio looked into those large blue eyes, 

Now the dull haunts of homeless wincing woes, 

Once joy-flamed angels in a paradise; 
And tenderly he read her spirit's throes, 

And reading, inly sighed her woman's sighs, 

And tuned his breath to such warm life as blows 

From April's cheeks to dry the frosty dew 

An unschooled night hath dropt on violets new. 



IX. 

In wonderment looked she upon his eyes. 

Like a spent swimmer who on a sudden feels 
His feet buoyed by a rock, delight's surprise 

Vaults full her being, and she hears the peals 
Of her hushed maiden laughter, as far cries 

Are heard in dreams : then quick her mother steals 
Into her sight, part interfused with him 
Who stands there, overt angel, clear and dim. 



26 ELLEN, 

X. 

For many moons, no, not for a dread year, — 
Not since that wild hour when v convulsed pale, 

She left the cottage with a shuddering fear, 
That yet foretold but tithe of garnered bale, — 

Had sound of love wooed her wan starved ear. 
No new-come infant with more easeful hail 

Doth pallid mother prayerful greet than she 

Those strange low words of bashful sympathy. 



XI. 

They lifted her above the tainted waste, 

Where holiest feelings are disfranchised quite, 

And the heart's fairest garnitures defaced. 
To man's high only heaven, the self-delight 

(Mounted when he with selfless thought is braced) 
Where love, like to the God-replenished might 

Of planet-warming suns, works outward aye, 

And lives by making for new worlds the day, — 



ELLEN. 2 7 

XII. 
For a brief moment's pasture, even to this 

They lifted her, and she, through the mild power 
Of that creative cadence, the gone bliss 

Of filial duteousness refelt, in shower 
Of thoughts that glistened o'er the bald abyss 

Of her nude noisome life a rainbow's dower, 
As beautifully sudden and as brief, 
Aerial glow gilding a fen of grief, — 



XIII. 

From topmost life a flash, that showed the hell 
Wherein she agonized, more ghastly dead, 

Revealing too (what misery sought to quell) 
A heavenly good within the spirit bred, 

A flushing- font, a sure upheaving well, 

Which now outsparkled from its fountain-head 

To freshen even her trampled virgin wreath, 

Making her move aside to weep for death. 



28 ELLEN*. 

XIV. 
Horatio turned him quickly to the wall, 

And deeply scanned a shallow picture there ; 
For he had seen the tear about to fall 

From swollen o'ertasked eyelids, and would spare 
Himself and her. — Soon at his side a tall 

Pale woman stood, of whose black eye a glare, 
Wild, restless, had one-half the lustre drunk ; 
The other back into the brain had sunk. 



xv. 
Each feature fine was shrunken by a scar 

Cut by the crushing of three several crowns, 
An arch'd head circling once and reigning far, 

The tokens of the choice of earth's renowns 
By woman earned, each centred by a star 

That with its light all other radiance drowns, — 
The holy royalties of feminine life, 
Clasping the brow of daughter, mother, wife. 



ELLEN 29 

XVI. 
In this fast-lapsing crowded desolation, — 

A noble visage marred, — beauty still throned, 
As mid the iconoclastic devastation 

By passionate throng that will not be postponed, 
And wreaks itself in vaporous elation 

On statue-peopled temple, some still-zoned 
Melonian Venus stands, maimed, blackened, pelted, 
Erect, with all her fallen trophies belted. 



XVII. 

The splendor of the ruin, at a glance 
Horatio seeing, in the brain there flamed 

A light so luminous, his countenance 

Glowed saintly deep, to manly reverence tamed. 

On her it fell, as on one in a trance 

Music unearthly. Then the past reclaimed 

Her mutinous heart, and flooding it with beauty, 

Repeopled all the desert fields of duty. 



30 ELLEN. 

XVIII. 
For a brief space she stood illuminated, 

The banished loves, called sudden home, replaying 
With eye, ear, lip and cheek and hair, elated 

With unsoiled breath to fill her core, and raying 
Through inmost avenues, to thought remated,— 

Great loves, that are the life of life, defraying 
The costliest costs of being, with home-caressing 
Healing man's wounds, and woman hourly blessing. 

XIX. 

Whoe'er upon a lustrous face delighted, 

Hath seen the headlong lapse from joy to pain, 

When one with warmest happiest eye-beam sighted, 
Reels, sinks, and dies, by unwarned death-stroke 
slain, — 

Can see that radiance in a moment blighted, 
As the quick ruddy flood ebbed back again, 

And she knows that she has but felt and seen 

A vision brief of what she once had been. 






ELLEN. 




31 



XX. 

What she had been — and what she is! O fall 
Unthinkable ! Groan, nursing Nature, groan 

Through thy divinest deeps ; hoarse discords all, 
Howl curst confusion's howl • loud load of moan, 

Break the strong heart of woe ; black night, appall 
Hell's inmates with thy gloom ; for here is grown 

A deed that outbids chaos, while the power 

That wrought this death, — the social whole, — doth 
lower, 

XXI. 

And menace more, deaf as the darkening cloud 
That clasps the earth with sleety fingers hard, 

Heedless as the sunned sea that, wild and loud, 
Outroars the wind his mate, and on the scarred 

Defenceless shore wrecks a whole navy proud, 
Smiling on victims like a springing pard. 

How long, O God ! how long shall this be fate ? 

O man ! this needs not, must not, be thy state. 



32 ELLEN. 

XXII. 
O woman ! thou, thou art a heaven-hung nest, 

By soundless wings o'erbrooded, where is hatched 
Earth's paragon, Heaven's heir and 'waited guest. 

Earth worships thee, and warmly art thou watched 
By prescient angels, and, by all the best 

That know exulted in as the unmatched 
Delight of whate'er lives and wills and loves, 
The central majesty to all that moves. 



XXIII. 

All essences that sparkle, in their glee 
Of life, upon the joy of Nature's face, 

And, quivering in the wind-waved cypress-tree 
Or in the leopard's gait, glow into grace, 

Or, throbbing through the wood's wild melody, 
To music soar, find their selectest place 

In thee, selectest for a large fulfillment, 

And sweetest, subtlest for a fine distillment. 



ELLEN. 33 

XXIV. 
All integrants of being, the low and higher, 

The lords of work, the visionary powers, 
Leap with the lightnings of a holier fire 

In thee ; and, like young bees to honeyest flowers, 
Imaginations in unbought attire 

Crowd to thy brain, and, buoyed by sweetening 
showers, 
Shed softly by the tenderest loves, presage 
Life's mightiness from their elected cage. 

xxv. 

The gladdened insights, intuitions named, 

That flashing come, — so wise their swift discern- 
ings, — 

A freight from Heaven on sightless fibril flamed, 
Hushed duties, aspirations, holiest yearnings, 

Prime impulses most prodigally framed, 

All reap in thee their ripest inmost earnings. 

The Fates their longest ranges weave through thee, 

Sorrow and joy their deepest ecstasy. 



34 ELLEN, 

XXVI. 

She is a woman, too, this haggard one, 

And those about her, some more sunken still, 

A monstrous group, each fearfully alone, 
All homeless, uncaressed, the cloven will 

Confounded, blinded, shattered on its throne 
Mid rifled loves, that naught of earth can kill, 

And whose sick pulses throb a pauseless dirge 

And all their music in one wailing merge. 



XXVII. 

And like them, there outside, that blasted throng 
Ubiquitous, stript of their woman's dues, — 

A live distemperature that saps the strong 
Well blood of manhood, — jubilant abuse, 

Defiant ever-pelting storm of wrong, 

Discordant willingness in the strung thews 

Of myriad harps, swept by a touch so foul 

The tuneful strings yield but a barren howl. 



ELLEN. 35 

XXVIII. 

No victor Knight beside his lady fair, 
Mid glittering gaze of plumed chivalry, 

Not Bayard's self, whose deferential air 
A bloom of inwardness was sure to be, 

With more of Christian lustre shone than there 
Horatio on that friendless company. 

He full performed the gentlemanly task, 

To see the woman still behind the mask. 

XXIX. 

And those banned, lonesome lost ones, they were 
saved, 

A moment saved. A moment their soul-ache 
Stopt beating, when the woman new was laved 

By the resurging spirit, as in a lake 
Of soft absolving light, and thoughts that raved 

Around infected prison-walls, now take 
Repose, — stilled in that manly presence pure, — 
And tune themselves, again serene, secure. 



36 ELLEN. 

XXX. 

E'en in the most unsexed of all, whom years 
Had more and more in fleshly bands enwrapt, 

Through smeary eyelids, long unwashed by tears, 
A light (chaos with primal day-beam capt) 

Strange glistened in the unhallowed lap of leers, 
A soft maternal light inaptly apt, 

Ray from a blessing that had failed to bless, 

Sole flower in a hot weedy wilderness. 



XXXI. 

In younger days she lost an infant boy, 

And the dead babe had grown within her mind 

(Angel asleep mid sensual tumult's joy), 
Until by such mute secret nurture kind 

He came to manhood, so without alloy 

She seemed in this fine form her child to find; 

And when Horatio touched with grief she saw* 

She trembled, and her heart stood still for awe. 



III. 

THE RESCUE, 
i. 
Horatio's heart grew faint with tears. He slid 

Into another room, where one meek light 
Left unbetrayed, in stillness* ambush hid, 

A seated figure, till at sudden sight 
Of him, with scream quick counterchecked, it did 

Upleap, and then relapsed as swiftly, fright 
Outwailing, " Heaven ! it is not he : No ! No ! " 
Like one in the tight agony of woe. 



38 ELLEN. 

II. 
Gushed hot her sobs, as though voracious grief 

Would break upon her heart a lenten fast. 
Her tears made issue, — bringing sad relief, — 

For his, so long inpent, and now at last 
Free poured, as loosened brooklet after brief 

Frost-prisonment when winter should be past. 
Her weeping paused, to hearken to his sighs ; 
Then, soft as cloud that on a summit lies, 



in. 

She laid her hand upon his sleeve, and said, 
In voice with wonder weak and tenderness, 

" Who are* you ? " And Horatio raised his head 
To look on girlish model of distress, 

Of whose original splendor yet was dead 
Scarcely a beam, — a face made to caress 

And be caressed. "To save you I am come." 

Like warbled welcome to supernal home, 



ELLEN. 39 

IV. 
Sang to her soul the words. Up she arose 

Ere he could rise ; and ere the breath was cold 
That he had uttered, 'round them were the rows 

Of sleeping houses, and wide heaven uprolled. 
Their footsteps were not effort, but repose, 

Like sway of uncaged eagle when unfold 
His wings, and he all flutterless the brow 
Shades swift of mountain, such their motion now. 



v. 

They walked as though with sightless pinion urged; 

For joy doth counterweigh the body's weight, 
And the smit soul, if rearward it hath verged, 

Rebounds against the stumbles of its mate, 
Catching at heavenward cords when most submerged. 

This trustful girl was thrown upon the great 
Thick-panting whirlpool of the nether town, 
Wherein, unhelpt, she surely must go down. 



40 ELLEN. 

VI. 
But when she saw those tears and heard those sighs. 

And looked upon that face; with woman's sure 
Swift insight, and resolve as quick as wise, — 

Yielding, like the tall juicy pine, most pure 
Her balm when wounded, — nimbly did she rise 

Above the slimy damps, unclean, obscure, 
Oozing from heated thoughts that thaw the will, 
And through the senses venomed flavors still. 



VII. 

The stars looked near and friendly on the two, 
And they, — as people will when they have had 

The spirit bathed in hope or joy, — their view 
Turned thankful thither, and, though she was sad 

Amid her hope, their light shone heavenly new. 
Horatio moved as a strong savior glad. 

They reached her door, to have their mood redaunted ; 

From a near open window thus was chaunted : 



ELLEN. 4 1 



" Will you not come to me, mother, 

Will you not come to me ? 

I am alone, I am alone. 

Come to me, mother, come to me, 

I am alone, alone. 

Come to me, come to me, 

I am alone. 



" When will you come to me, sister, 

When will you come to me ? 

I am alone, I am alone. 

Come to me, sister, come to me, 

I am alone, alone. 

Come to me, come to me, 

I am alone." 



42 ELLEN. 

VIII. 
Upon these words the cadence rose and fell 

Within a single bar, now weak then weaker, 
Repeating them, revolving, like a spell 

Of weird monotony by some wild seeker. 
More than the words the tone a tale did tell, — 

A heart's deep dirge, self-sung and meek; and 
meeker 
With every repetition, till it dwindled 
To faintest flame, no more to be enkindled ; 

IX. 

As if one heeded, on a silent shore, 

After a season of dismasting storms, 
A corpse, white, beautiful, — from the sea's core 

Singly upthrown of all its swallowed swarms, — 
And saw it rocked, and gently more and more 

As the waves calmed, and they, now stilled of harms, 
Licked it all tenderly, the heaving sea 
Softly uplifting it repentantly. 



ELLEN. 43 

X. 

Tears, tears, — gems wrought in Nature's glowing mine 
When the heart beats its truest beat, — they set 

Their liquid lustres in enravished eyne, 

To beam their brightest when large lids are wet 

With life-drops pearled in bosom feminine. 
Death's silence ranged until 'twas faintly met 

By trembling sighs. Horatio soothed her sorrow, 

Saying, when leave he took, — " To-morrow, to- 
morrow." 

XI. 

O Sleep ! hushed nursling of the whispering night, 
Thou dost unknot the skeins of tangled day, 

And at thy bidding comes the delicate light 
Of stars to be thy watcher, while their ray 

Token sidereal is of mightiest might 

That guards thy dreamful nest ; thou dost allay 

The heartache, unbreathed torture, tameless strife, 

And whet'st the blunted tools of wearied life ; 



44 ELLEN. 

XII. 
Thou rich man's luxury and poor man's aid, 

Kind soother of the fretted brow of care, 
Celestial dew, on drooping labor laid 

As gently as the heaving of an infant's air, 
Brisk fancy's feeder, mould wherein are made 

Imagination's marshaled grandeurs fair, 
Choice lap of jealous brooding secrecy, 
Where root the seeds of all that is to be ; 



XIII. 

Sweet Sleep, thou universal comforter, 
That dost intrench us in oblivion, 

Thy daily balm thou didst withhold from her, 
The youthful, desolate, deserted one; 

For when thou sought'st thy blessing to confer, 
Where 'twas implored with enfamined tone, 

And on thy bed wouldst lie as in the past, 

At the wan tremor there thou stood'st aghast. 



ELLEN. 45 

XIV. 

By a pale figure sleep's brain-bed was haunted, 
That in frail accent said, "Alone, alone " ; 

And with a look that would not be avaunted 
Kept whispering this appeal with ardent moan, 

And gazed beseechingly, as though it wanted 
Condolence from a warm companion : 

Then it grew dim and faded, like a mist 

By an ascending sun serenely kist. 



xv. 
It soon returned, and more ethereal, 

Aye feebly syllabling the one sad word, 
A clear transparency aerial, 

Yet plain to sight, with tone like silver cord 
Touched tenderly by breath empyreal. 

Fainter and fainter grew its mild abord, 
Until at last it slowly disappeared, 
Leaving the charmed ear and eye afeard. 



46 ELLEN. 

XVI. 
But sallow fear was tinct with fellow-feeling, 

And the awe at this new life-experience, — 
That was to her mazed soul sublime revealing 

Of sights beyond the current ken of sense, 
And of the pact divine supreme unsealing, — 

Threw a halo round her dread, as round the dense 
Portentous darkness of a cloud at even 
Effulgence glows, flamed from the further heaven. 



XVII. 

So, by degrees her pulse ran quieter, 

A quiver of the heartstrings' play was stilled, 

As of a shoaly stream th' outflowing stir 

When by great ocean's tideful swell 'tis filled. 

She to herself was hallowed: messenger 

From God seemed to unbind her; and, unskilled 

As young thoughts are in widest themes, her being 

Ranged in the distances of new far-seeing. 



ELLEN. 



47 



XVIII. 

Long hours had waned since the sure sun did steep 
The expectant air in his strong helpfulness, 

Ere she could yield her to the embrace of sleep 
And give him sway o'er all that fair distress. 

At last the wetted eyes were closed, and deep 
And even heaved her breast in quietness. 

On the soft cheek recumbent, as she slept 

Unfollowed lay the tear-drops she had wept. 



XIX. 

She lay involved in beauty and in grace 
As in a limpid film of sparkling mist. 

A night-storm stamps its tumult on the face 
Of orient day, so she could not resist 

The turmoil of the past, which would displace 
The calm upon her lips. Like Venus kist 

By sooty Vulcan, her lulled features bore 

At times the torment of an inward sore. 



48 ELLEN. 

XX. 

This gentle creature, peril'd there, so full 

Of love and guileless life, signed with God's marks 

Of favor, intellectual, beautiful, 

Whose destiny should be the lifesome lark's 

To mount singing towards Heaven, — which to annul 
Shows compact coarse of the base howls and barks 

Of bestial man, envious of elevations, 

Thrust on by wanton Hell to desecrations, — 

XXI. 

O, 'tis a sight to summon angel-swarms 

Down from their heedful home, through threatened 
earth 

And rallied Heaven sounding their high alarms 
Against the ravage of a moral dearth. 

There lies God's masterpiece, clutched at by harms 
That maim creation's might and Nature's worth. 

Men, rouse ye from cold stupor, and be men, 

That your dear daughters deck no harlot's den. 



ELLEN, 49 

XXII. 
The tender girl lay there asleep, enfolden 

In all the magic curves that beauty weaves. 
Myriad-eyed light, as he had ne'er beholden 

Creature more fair, blazed on her, — as on sheaves 
In ripening June, — his fiery rapture golden ; 

And poet gazing, whose thrilled bosom heaves 
With inspiration, from long-wooed ideal, 
Still deeper draught had drawn from fleshly real. 



XXIII. 

More from the dazzlement of inward sight 

Than that of beams glancing with glistening glee, 

Her eyes oped sudden, to behold a bright 

Majestic woman: — "You are come for me" — 

Uttered with faith from a mysterious light. 
" I am;'' the lady said benignantly, 

Her face relucent with those sleeping charms : 

Then the sweet girl she folded in her arms. 
4 



IV. 
A COUNTRY HOME. 

i. 
On turf soft sloping to an inland bay, 

That brought sure messages from far-off ocean, — 
Or through a whisper of the tidal play, 

Or moody mutterings of tempestuous motion, — 
A spot where sunny Spring loves to display 

His fresh habiliments and annual portion 
Of green delight, a modest dwelling stood, 
Unboastful low, and humbly built of wood. 



ELLEN, 5 1 

II. 
The door looked westward, and in the after hours 

Of the ampler days thence was inhaled the glow 
Of flushed immensities, when regnant powers 

Conspire to joy recipient eyes with show 
Of golden splendency, — one of the showers 

The spirit on earth is quickened with, the low 
Necessities of sense to compensate, 
And foretaste feel of its enfranchised state. 



in. 
A place where commune might be lonely held 

At best advantage with wise Nature's soul, 
And hearkened to the deep discourse that welled 

Unceasing from her bosom ; for, the roll 
Of her munificence unparalleled 

Well-nigh it was, and so profuse her dole 
Of broader bounties to the chosen spot, 
It raised the bliss of contemplation's lot. 



52 ELLEN. 



IV. 



Beyond the narrow bay the landscape drew 
The eye through reaches undulant to hills; 

Then to the right brought sudden close the view 
With treeless rocks high raised on granite sills, 

Whence morning's breath, sea-scented, sometimes blew 
Thin masking mists ; when the air was still, near rills 

Trilled softly to an unpossessed ear ; 

And when was far away the sun, and clear 



v. 
The night, swift stars came down from their high bed 

To lie upon the bay's inviting breast. 
A grove of pine-trees redolent so wed 

Their limbs they were a home and motherly nest 
For birds that from the ravening snow-rage fled; 

And of the north-winds made a near arrest 
Ere they could strike the lowly house. Old trees 
Stood around that music drew from summer's breeze. 



ELLEN. 



53 



VI. 

Beneath the quiet roof a household dwelt, 

In home's sweet troth intwined with triple ties: 

Grandparents with grandchildren were a belt 

That smooth embraced in common smiles or sighs 

What father and dear mother keenly felt. 
And now, warm sorrow surging in all eyes, 

On them, the centres, heaviest hung the gloom 

Of all, that followed each from room to room. 



VII. 

'Twas not the patient sorrow, ashy-hued, 
Sunk by a death, that sighs internally, 

And with religious tonic balm imbued, 
Uplifts the humbled spirit to be free ; 

But feverish lowness, pale incertitude, 
The restlessness of toiled anxiety, 

That gnawed each member of the stricken group, 

And made their very life-strings writhe and droop, 



54 ELLEN. 

VIII. 

As though there had been struck a stunning stroke 
And yet a heavier were about to fall. 

The mother's hours were strained with sighs. She 
awoke 
From spectral sleep to taste a bitterer gall 

Each day: grief cradled every word she spoke. 
A daughter, blandly bright, unwonted tall 

For fifteen summers, hung about her neck, 

As she with tears her mother's tears would check. 

IX. 

The son, but two years older, all alone 

Would sadly range afar, as though the task 

Were laid to seek one who was lost and gone. 
A prattler, six years grown, would weep and ask, 

"Is sister coming home?" with puzzled tone, 
And then in childhood's silver sunshine bask, 

Feeling with baffled sense the tearful gloom, 

Unsounded yet the deeps of such a doom. 



ELLEN. 55 

X. 

Silent the father sat, — his wonted mood 
Of voiceful cheerfulness by dark surmise 

O'ershadowed, — stung by a spiteful buzzing brood 
Of fancies ruthless, such as tortuous rise, 

Black swarming, to infect each drop of blood 
That thrids a wounded heart, his painful eyes 

Busied with vacancy, or inward bent, 

As witnesses to some sore grapplement. 



XI. 

At times a shudder seized his manly frame, 
And he would stride across the room, to shake 

The horror from his fear, which then in flame 

Of scalding words would burst, that made all quake 

With grief: — "O Ellen! Ellen!— O thy name 

It burns me — O my child — my heart will break." 

His mother then would circle him, in vain 

Striving to assuage the torment of his brain. 



56 ELLEN, 

XII. 

One evening, at the height of such a scene, 
Was brought a letter. All, between despair 

And hope, stood still. Swiftly the envelope's screen 
With trembling hand the mother rent, to bare 

The hoped dreaded contents ; then with mother's 
mien 
Outcried — " She's safe — she's saved." Upon a chair 

The father sank, to sob his joy, the others 

Outweeping theirs around the weeping mother's. 

XIII. 

The grandsire, more controlled than all the rest, 
Outgave the riches of the written stores. 

" Two weeks your child hath lain upon my breast, 
And there for aye should lie, were she not yours. 

So true, so fair, so pure, I should be blest 
To keep her ever in my core of cores." 

'Twas dated from the city near, that is, 

The great American Metropolis. 



ELLEN. 57 

XIV. 
While they were listening yet, the door was oped : 

All hearts leapt towards it, and the father rose 
Paternally, to meet, not what he hoped, 

But a majestic woman, the repose 
Of whose large face with glow of love was coped. 

All quick re-read the letter, and their woes' 
Relief, in that sweet nobre countenance, 
As warm she met their grateful glistening glance. 

xv. 
The father, moving towards her, suing said, 

In voice o'erladen with affection's store, 
" My child, my child — where is my child ? " afraid 

Almost to trust his hope. Through the half-closed 
door 
Rushed Ellen, falling on his knees. He laid 

His heart to hers — and all were on the floor 
'Round her, a pile of weeping happiness. 
Heaven raised the lady's hands the group to bless. 



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